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Ending Bitcoin Support

stripe.com

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Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#431

Post by dragonwriter »

stctgion wrote: post #410
fastball wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is currently the crypto equivalent of gold. It's not reasonable to use it to buy a coffee. However, Bitcoin is trying (but many would argue, failing) to upgrade the network with something that will allow cheaper/faster transactions and make it a reasonable currency again. However, (imo) in-fighting has seriously hampered this. That being the reality, many people hope that Bitcoin will remain a store of value…

It's not gold. Gold has a long history of being a stable store of value. I could buy gold now and sit back and not worry that the price was about to fall through the floor. Owning bitcoin is not the same. At any moment it could tank. If all the investors suddenly got interested in Pokémon cards they would be just as useful as a store of value.

> I could buy gold now and sit back and not worry that the price was about to fall through the floor.

Lots of people have believed that in the past. Sometimes they've been right, sometimes not. The future supply of commodities doesn't always follow expectations.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#432

Post by milcron »

WorldMaker wrote: post #294
root_axis wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's supply will remain constant after it has all been mined Even this could change if the miners and thought-leaders decide that it should.

You can't hard fork gold, either. You don't suddenly wind up with two copies of a gold bar because someone decided to Xerox your ledger to start a new one. The scarcity of Bitcoins is entirely a cultural delusion.

If your payment is denominated in BTC, you can't pay it with BCH even though they're a fork of the same blockchain.

BTC proper is scarce, regardless of how many times the chain is forked.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#433

Post by Cyberdog »

cheez wrote: post #430
Cyberdog wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you converting straight to USD (or your local currency), or keeping the BTC? I know most storefronts that accept crypto do the former, but I can't help but wonder how much more they could have made if they had done the latter.

Easy to say after the fact.

Yes, fair enough - hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#434

Post by Mahn »

Operyl wrote: post #413
eosrei wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW that is the goal of the Lightning Network on Bitcoin: https://lightning.network/

I keep seeing this brought up over months and months, but how close are we even to using it? Is the technology a thing yet? Or is it all white papers.

It exists in its early stages, but it's terribly impractical, hence no exchange or end user is in a rush to adopt it. Its design is almost like someone took a hard look at Bitcoin and concluded "Gee, this is not cumbersome enough for people, we need to make transacting a worse and more confusing experience".

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#435

Post by PunchTornado »

koheripbal wrote: post #49
vec wrote: post #18

For what it's worth, we just spent two weeks trying and failing to get Stripe's Bitcoin integration working on our site. The short version is that Stripe guaranteed a USD BTC exchange rate for an hour, after which they would automatically cancel the transaction. Given that most transactions now take well over an hour to be verified on the blockchain, that means basically every transaction fails.

I honestly don't know what use-case remains for Bitcoin. If you have large value transactions you'd probably choose something with privacy like Monero, and if you want something cheap and fast, maybe Bitcoin Cash. In both use-cases, you have a few competing alternatives. In no circumstance is Bitcoin preferable to one of the mature alternatives. ...and if no one is using it as a transaction medium, then acting as a s…

lighting network is pretty fast now. bitcoin cash will have the same problems like bitcoin once is growing in size. not a solution.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#436

Post by at-fates-hands »

tdb7893 wrote: post #416
qwerty456127 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you sure convenience will not improve?

With increasing regulations around cryptocurrencies large private transactions will be much more regulated, or possibly illegal, which will cut down on usability. Even if it's actually anonymous and buyers don't have to worry about it sellers will have to or risk being shut down

The SEC is already moving in the direction of trying to mitigate large scale transactions. They know they can't stop the spread of crytpocurrencies, but they're doing everything they can to reduce people using it for larger scale transactions or investments.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#437

Post by brndnmtthws »

Jommi wrote: post #362
glesperance wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have your tried XLM, XRP, LTC, Dash, or pretty much any other cryptocurrency? They're much faster, and considerably cheaper than Bitcoin to use.

That doesn't mean they will be as fast or cheap (or decentralized) when the network size is as big.

Precisely.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#438

Post by notyourday »

ujal wrote: post #366
notyourday wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It uses a distributed public ledger, not bitcoin.

It does use bitcoin to verify the transactions. Point is, bitcoin - currently being the biggest blockchain deployed - is more trustworthy than most governments and therefore most currencies. I am not an economist though and regulations seem to be necessary in the real world. Any ideas as to what technology, giving widespread adoption, would make them obsolete?

If the claim is that the private data unrelated to bitcoin transactions is being published and verified on a bitcoin blockchain then this is a scam.

It is absolutely amazing that the person who wrote this article still has a title of a Senior Editor that claims to write on this topic.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#439

Post by WorldMaker »

milcron wrote: post #432
WorldMaker wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't hard fork gold, either. You don't suddenly wind up with two copies of a gold bar because someone decided to Xerox your ledger to start a new one. The scarcity of Bitcoins is entirely a cultural delusion.

If your payment is denominated in BTC, you can't pay it with BCH even though they're a fork of the same blockchain. BTC proper is scarce, regardless of how many times the chain is forked.

The distinction between "BTC" and "BCH" (and "BTCS" and "BCD" and so on ad infinitum) is cultural convention. There's no inherent technical merit (or alchemical nature) to one ledger over all other contenders, it's entirely a state of mind of its users.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#440

Post by Paul-ish »

hmcdona1 wrote: post #428
eosrei wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW that is the goal of the Lightning Network on Bitcoin: https://lightning.network/

The lightning network will be far less effective than people are hoping. You have to a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it, and b) each stake capital in that channel for it to be functional. This is useful only in specific scenarios like exchange-to-exchange transfers. Exchanges are going to be very unlikely to ever set up channels to customers. They haven't even implemented segwit yet, ther…

> a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it

I think you only need a path to the person you want to pay, not a direct channel. eg if Alice wants to pay Bob, and they both have a channel to Greg, then Alice can send money to Bob through Greg.

> They haven't even implemented segwit yet,

The wikipedia[1] page seems to say that most miners implement segwit now.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SegWit

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